I’ve been trying to be sociable while I’m in Japan, which means that I’m trying to invite people along when I go down to the nearby station area to eat. Unfortunately, I’m learning that this comes with some necessary compromises.

For example, the other day I’d found a place that had enticing plastic window food, most of it adhering to the “tonkatsu + sauce = love” equation, and it was my intention to go back there for dinner.

My walking companion, however, wasn’t so sure about the place, and then wasn’t terribly keen on the idea of going into an Okonomiyaki place, and so we wound up at, well…

I’m going to defend the trip to McDonald’s as another instance of me sacrificing my sanity and stomach for the benefit of the few poor souls who stumble across this blog.

Anyway, the current seasonal burger in Japan is the Teri Tama burger, available also with cheese as the cleverly named “Cheese Teri Tama” burger, and I ordered one of those. I also went for the strawberry-yogurt McFlurry, probably because I figured I wasn’t doing myself enough harm with the burger.

It has yogurt in it, it’s got to be healthy, right?

Anyway, the burger, etc:

Between a bun – that was, as an aside, woefully inadequate to withstand the assault of the various sauces – you get some mayo, lettuce, an egg, some cheese (presuming, of course, that you have selected the CHEESE Teri Tama), and a burger liberally soaked in teriyaki sauce.

The overall effect is interesting, if a little disturbing. It’s kind of in this indeterminate state between solid and liquid, and gives the impression that, if you wanted to, you could probably swallow the burger without necessarily chewing.

Needless to say, it was terribly messy to eat.

The McFlurry was, as expected, strawberryish and a little tart from the yogurt, nothing special to mention there though it was fairly good.

The true surprise of the evening? I wasn’t actually in intense intestinal pain after eating this thing. I’m going to file that under “incredibly lucky” and refrain from pushing my luck by going back for another one.